STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - For a man who appreciates peace and quiet, the Staten Island Expressway overpass seems an unlikely place to do business. The rumbling trucks and hurtling cars have become background noise for a local panhandler named Brian, who spends his days along the guardrail and has been doing so for the last four years.

Brian does not have a trick or a gimmick. He does not have a sales pitch or a spiel. He does not make demands. Besides Sundays, he does not take time off. After four years on the overpass, his face is familiar, but most people -- even the commuters who see him every day -- don't know his name.

They know him as "the guy with the glasses," or "the guy who wears that construction vest," or "the one over there? Yeah he's there all the time."

"He doesn't bother nobody," says a regular passer-by.

"I just keep to myself," Brian says.

When the light is green and traffic is moving, he stays seated, his toes just shy of the painted yellow line. When traffic slows down, he stands up. When a driver rolls down the window, he approaches and extends his clear plastic container to collect the offering. "God bless you," he says. Then he walks back to the side of the road, crumples the bills and places them in the tote bag hanging on the guardrail. He collected five dollars in the span of 10 minutes the other day.

Brian is 53 years old. He moved to Staten Island from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, over a decade ago, when his mother died. He lives in Randall Manor with a friend whose father died around the same time. Staten Island is more comfortable, he says. Brooklyn was too noisy.

The cashier at Mignosi Supermarket, across the Expressway from Brian's post, says he comes in from time to time to buy a few groceries.

The office manager at Dr. Gadomski's dermatology practice says he's asked to use their restroom several times in the past.

The nurses at Sunrise Senior Living say he used to sell bottled water in the afternoons. They didn't buy any because it's dangerous for him be out in the road and they didn't want him to get injured.

Brian uses a cane to navigate the traffic and an umbrella when it rains. If the rain picks up, he moves to the Targee Street underpass, where the expressway keeps him mostly dry. His glasses have thick bifocal lenses, apparently correcting exceptionally bad vision.

"I give him money because he seems legitimate," says a man with a mustache who regularly sees Brian from his car. Legitimate means legitimately handicapped, the man explains. "You can see... that something's not right."

Standing on the sidewalk at a nearby intersection, a traffic cop poses three questions about panhandlers in general. "Why did they come here?" "Are they faking?" "Is the city not helping them?"

According to the NYPD, panhandlers who venture into the street could be subject to arrest. The law distinguishes between "aggressive" and non-aggressive modes of panhandling. Aggressive is a general term: Intimidation, appeals for sympathy, even certain postures.

Brian says he hasn't had any serious encounters with police officers. He does not want to attract unnecessary attention. So he sits quietly on his perch, toeing the line while the rush hour commuters go by. Then at 6 o'clock, every day but Sunday, he packs up and heads home.